Lefty journalist Glenn Greenwald defended himself and his actions when he was asked by MSNBC’s Kristen Welker if he was acting as a spokesman for whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Greenwald’s response was priceless, “We’re on MSNBC now, where close to 24 hours a day the agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Party are promoted, defended, glorified.” OUCH!!! But he did not stop there … “Sure, I do defend him just like people on MSNBC defend President Obama and his officials and Democratic Party leaders 24 hours a day.”

Sit back, grab the popcorn and a beverage and watch Lib on Lib duke it out …

I think that’s ludicrous is what I say to that,” Greenwald shot back. “Every journalist has an agenda. We’re on MSNBC now, where close to 24 hours a day the agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Party are promoted, defended, glorified, the agenda of the Republican Party is undermined. That doesn’t mean the people who appear on MSNBC aren’t journalists, they are.”

He said that every journalist has a “viewpoint” and he doesn’t hide the fact that he finds Snowden’s decision to expose the NSA’s surveillance programs “heroic.”

“Sure, I do defend him just like people on MSNBC defend President Obama and his officials and Democratic Party leaders 24 hours a day.”

It’s not just me who is laughing that anyone on BSNBC would have the CO-JONES to ask anyone if what they did affects their journalist integrity, the Lonely Conservative is getting a good chuckle herself.

According to the latest Gallup poll, an astonishing 72% of Americans now say that “BIG” government is the greatest threat to America as compared with big business and big labor. WOW!!!

The PJ Tatler makes an astute observation that has a lot of merit, see the chart below and notice when the noticeable upward trend began in 2009. Hmm, what happened then? Of course this boost in Americans fear of big government has everything to do with the so-called “Hope & Change” that they voted for in electing Barack Obama. It would appear that the folks at Hot Air noticed the remarkable trajectory as well. He promised transparency and delivered something quite different. What’s the matter America, you have a problem with the IRS enforcing Obamacare? Personally, I think they need to start including the MSM in these polls as well.

America, wake the hell up and make a stand against “BIG GOVERNMENT” liberalism or it will be here to stay. Elections matter, get out and vote against it if you feel strongly against it!!!

Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.

The latest update comes from a Dec. 5-8 poll. Gallup has documented a steady increase in concern about big government since 2009, rising from 55% in March 2009 to 64% in November 2011 and 72% today. This suggests that government policies specific to the period, such as the Affordable Care Act — perhaps coupled with recent revelations of government spying tactics by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — may be factors.

I would also add this upswing has in part to do with a bunch of gutless, establishment RINO’s who think that it is more important to sell ouch their Republican principles and protecting “We the People” as opposed to retain their power.

Like I said, Pope Francis is an easy and justifiable choice, it is the reasons why he was picked that are suspect. In any other year Edward Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower would have won this hands down. He exposed the spying ways of the NSA and will continue to do so for months and years to come. Snowden’s exposing of the NSA has even made US lawmakers and foreign leaders question what this spy organization is doing.

However, Snowden finished second to Pope Francis for pretty much one reason and that is Time’s media bias to push Obama’s agenda of “income equity” otherwise known as socialism.

Once there was a boy so meek and modest, he was awarded a Most Humble badge. The next day, It was taken away because he wore it. Here endeth the lesson.

How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly—young and old, faithful and cynical—as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.

And yet in less than a year, he has done something remarkable: he has not changed the words, but he’s changed the music. Tone and temperament matter in a church built on the substance of symbols—bread and wine, body and blood—so it is a mistake to dismiss any Pope’s symbolic choices­ as gestures empty of the force of law. He released his first exhortation, an attack on “the idolatry of money,” just as Americans were contemplating the day set aside for gratitude and whether to spend it at the mall.

OUCH … 18 to 29 year-olds are in revolt against President Barack Obama, how he has handled his job, healthcare and Obamacare itself!!!

Hey Mr. President … the millennial’s just are not that into you anymore now that they know they truth and they have been lied to and used. Couple the healthcare lies with the NSA spying scandals and the youth that so supported Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections now learn that there is nothing “Hopey-Changey” about Obama. He is the same old, same old lying politicians. Maybe even worse. According to a new Harvard IOP poll, among the 18- 29- year olds currently without health insurance, less than 1/3 say they’re likely to enroll in the exchange. 13% say they will definitely enroll, 16% say they will probably enroll; 41% say they are 50-50 at the moment.

54% Disapprove of Obama’s Job Performance

61% Disapproved of his Handling of Healthcare

57% Disapproved of the Affordable Care Act

44% said they think the quality of their health care will get worse

The Millennials actually now look more like the rest of the voter electorate.

The trend is daunting for the White House but not necessarily surprising,” said Pew Research Center Director Michael Dimock.

“Younger folks are part of Obama’s base … but the rollout confirmed concerns that were already in their minds.”

A poll released Wednesday by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics found that more than half of 18- to 29-year-olds disapprove of ObamaCare and believe it will raise their healthcare costs.

Even more troubling for the administration is that less than one-third of uninsured young people said they plan to enroll in coverage.

Without a large number of young, healthy people in the insurance exchanges, it could create a “death spiral” of high premiums that could threaten the long-term viability of the marketplaces.

The White House appears to recognize the growing threat, and is making outreach to younger people a major focus of its ObamaCare relaunch.

The president began the effort on Wednesday with a youth summit at the White House where he urged audience members to spread the word about the new healthcare exchanges — and think hard about their own health risks.

NAH, the NSA is not spying on us. Only if you count the thousands of times that an audit showed they actually did …

The WAPO reports, an NSA audit dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. As The Hillstates, the report is based on an internal audit and other documents leaked to the news organization by Edward Snowden. In other words, had Snowden not spill the beans, “We the People” would have had no knowledge of any of the NSA’s spying on Americans.

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. [...]

The Obama administration has provided almost no public information about the NSA’s compliance record. In June, after promising to explain the NSA’s record in “as transparent a way as we possibly can,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole described extensive safeguards and oversight that keep the agency in check. “Every now and then, there may be a mistake,” Cole said in congressional testimony.

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

At a news conference Friday, President Obama insisted that the threat of NSA abuses was mostly theoretical:

If you look at the reports, even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden’s put forward, all the stories that have been written, what you’re not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and, you know, listening in on people’s phone calls or inappropriately reading people’s e-mails.

What you’re hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now part of the reason they’re not abused is because they’re — these checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].

But as Weasel Zippers opines, this is just a phony scandal, even though the NSA actually did spy on Americans.

As reported at The Hill, a recent Quinnipiac University poll finds that a majority of Americna now side with NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The Quinnipiac poll finds that 55% identify Snowden as a whistle-blower and only 34% consider him a traitor. This is a dramatic shift in opinion. The public opinion appears to be changing as “We the People” hear more and more as to how the NSA was spying on all Americans and much more than we were ever lead to believe.

The Quinnipiac University poll found 55 percent identifying Snowden, who disclosed classified information detailing the NSA’s secret surveillance of phone and Internet traffic, a whistle-blower. Thirty-four percent said he was a traitor.

By 45 percent to 40 percent, respondents also said the government’s counterterrorism efforts went too far on limiting civil liberties. That marks a turnaround from a January 2010 Quinnipiac poll which found the public saying the government’s national security policies didn’t do enough by a 63 percent to 25 percent split.

“The massive swing in public opinion about civil liberties and governmental anti- terrorism efforts, and the public view that Edward Snowden is more whistle-blower than traitor are the public reaction and apparent shock at the extent to which the government has gone in trying to prevent future terrorist incidents,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Institute director Peter Brown in a statement.

The Guardian reports, that Snowden never gave any information to Chinese or Russian governments.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro offered asylumto former U.S. intelligence contractor and NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum.Now the question is whether Snowden will accept and how he will get there from Russia? Nicaragua has also offered Snowden asylum as well. The Hill reports, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said during a speech in Managua that he could accept the bid “if circumstances permit.”

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro offered asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in defiance of Washington, which is demanding his arrest for divulging details of secret U.S. spy programs.

Snowden, 30, is believed to be holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport and has been trying to find a country that would take him since he landed from Hong Kong on June 23.

“In the name of America’s dignity … I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to Edward Snowden,” Maduro told a military parade marking Venezuela’s independence day.

“He is a young man who has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the United States spying on the whole world.”

Earlier this week President Barack Obama, the “Bystander” in Chief, made it known in a smug and arrogant manner that he was too good to make any calls to Russia, China or Ecuador regarding Edward Snowden. Obama stated that there was a process and he would not be making any calls because he didn’t have to and he “wouldn’t be scrambling jets” to get Snowden. So glad that he is taking the situation do seriously and making flip responses to reporters questions. Obama lowered the bar on Snowden’s espionage calling him a “hacker” after others in his administration have referred to Snowden’s actions as the greatest security intelligence breach in US history. So which is it? How bad is it when Biden becomes the adult in the White House? Thus, Biden got on the phone and called Rafael Correa to turn down Snowden’s asylum request

Correa said he had a “friendly and very cordial” conversation with Biden, and told the vice president that Ecuador hadn’t sought to be put in the situation of deciding whether to harbor an American justice-dodger. He said Ecuador can’t consider the asylum request until Snowden is on Ecuadorean soil.

“The moment that he arrives, if he arrives, the first thing is we’ll ask the opinion of the United States, as we did in the Assange case with England,” Correa said. “But the decision is ours to make.”

The question that needs to be asked Biden by Wh reporters is whether Snowden is a big “F’n” deal?

Biden – Am I the 100th caller? Oh President Rafael Correa, how are you?

Vice President Joe Biden has asked Ecuador to turn down an asylum request from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, the country’s president said Saturday.

Rafael Correa, in a weekly television address, offered little sympathy for the Obama administration’s view that Snowden is a criminal who should be swiftly returned to the U.S. At the same time, he vowed to seek American input on any asylum request and suggested Snowden will have to answer for his actions.

The Friday phone call between Correa and Biden – it’s the highest-level conversation between the U.S. and Ecuador to be disclosed since Snowden began seeking asylum – added to the confusion about Snowden’s status. Facing espionage charges in the U.S., Snowden is believed to be holed up in a Moscow airport’s transit zone and seeking safe passage to Ecuador, the country seen as likeliest to shelter America’s most wanted fugitive.

Basically, Obama knows that Ecuador is going to tell the United States to pound sand when it comes the the extradition of Edward Snowden, so Obama would rather throw Biden under the bus than provide any form of leadership himself. I guess Obama will learn what happens when the media reports it.

And now we have more proof that President Obama just does not get engaged in issues unless it has to do with “green energy”, a war on oil or coal, or attacking conservatives and the Tea Party. As reported at The Weekly Standard, President Obama hasn’t called the Chinese and Russians about NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the man wanted by the U.S. government for espionage. HUH? Obama said smugly, “I’m Not Going to Be Scrambling Jets to Get a 29-Year-Old Hacker.” REALLY? Just a hacker? Hasn’t it been reported that Snowden had taken US intelligence? Hasn’t Snowden’s actions of disclosing NSA surveillance secrets been touted as damaging and one of the worst cases ever? Now we hear from Obama, Snowden is just a hacker. Obama really has no credibility any more. Just curious, how damaging or severe was what Snowden did if it does not prompt a call from Obama?

How does some one go from super spy potentially telling China and Russia some of our greatest secrets saved on a thumb drive and public enemy number # charged with espionage, to just a common hacker? Maybe if it was a campaign stop or fund raiser Obama would have made a call.

UPDATE I: But then Obama says according to CBS News, he is “concerned” Edward Snowden could leak more. How concerned could he really be, if he refuses to engage. Talk about a weak, weak president.

“I continue to be concerned about the other documents he may have,” Mr. Obama said at the joint news conference in Dakar with Senegalese President Macky Sall. “He has those documents. He’s released some of them but not all of them have been released.”